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08.25.2010

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HOW America EATS 2010

The Crucial Role of Food Culture Inside Weight Management

Despite legislation, food bans, product reformulations, new product introductions, menu adjustments, endless hours of debate and millions of advertising dollars to promote healthier eating, nothing has worked: the majority of America’s consumers continue to be overweight.

WHY?

Companies and policy makers fail to understand the dynamic of FOOD CULTURE and EATING OCCASIONS that absolutely affects change in eating behavior.

HOW America EATS 2010 syndicated study builds on The Hartman Group’s groundbreaking 2004 Obesity in America report providing unique new revelations into the role consumers expect food companies, policy makers and health care providers to play that will help them meet their healthy weight aspirations and goals.

Download the study overview >>

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Oprah, Food and Us

Why Eating Together Matters

Recently, Oprah sat down with Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food, and God. Roth has long been a fixture on the self-help scene, specifically in regards to eating practices and weight management. Watching Oprah vow to “never diet again” after discovering Roth’s eating guidelines, we were reminded of our own recommendations on understanding the obesity crisis outside of the usual tinkering and blaming.

Roth’s seven eating guidelines serve to make the individual conscious of their eating experience and eliminate mindless consumption:

Eat when you are hungry.
Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.
Eat what your body wants.
Eat until you are satisfied.
Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

Several of Roth’s recommendations are consistent with our continued research on obesity here at the Hartman Group, particularly in regards to the role of culture in our collective eating behaviors. As we have said time and again, the experience of food is largely determined by behavioral and cultural factors. Therefore, our understanding of obesity's causes must pay attention, as Roth suggests, to how we eat.

The time has come that we consider devoting less energy to what is in our food and what it is we eat in order to look more carefully at the ways in which we eat. So how are Americans eating? Some of the most interesting ﬁndings to emerge from our 2004 syndicated study on obesity concern the degree to which Americans are eating alone, in isolation and detached from the larger social world. That is to say, in Roth’s words, without “being in full view of others”. We appear to be eating much more food, far more frequently, and mostly alone, than at any previous point in history.

Simply and intuitively, the rule of thumb is that when others are around, we tend to eat less and when we are eating alone, we tend to eat much more. So we see that the same normative forces that keep us from transgressing moral boundaries (i.e., committing crimes), also keep us from overeating. But to achieve maximum benefit, we need to ensure that our eating occurs in social settings, where it can be acknowledged and effectively regulated, and not in isolation. Because we are so accustomed to constant snacking, and because so much of this snacking occurs in private (in our car, at our desks, at our school lockers, while watching TV), we are often completely unaware of the extra calories we are consuming.

With little notice or objection, the tendency toward constant grazing and sipping has firmly entrenched itself into our daily lives. Whereas snacking was formerly reserved for special occasions (dinner parties, films, concerts, birthdays, treats), snacking is now considered a perfectly acceptable, virtuous practice in everyday life. If snacks used to be symbols of extraordinary times (parties, rewards and the like), snacks today are used to characterize everyday, mundane time. Whereas children in generations past were delighted by snacks, today’s children expect them. In this, we could suggest snacking has transformed from a privilege to be enjoyed (perhaps with the “gusto” Roth describes) to a right.

The role of cultural forces to shape when and where we desire food must never be overlooked. These are the forces that compromise idealized notions of self-control and sabotage most long-term commitments to “diets” as well. These forces of collective behavior, or their absence, play a critical role in aiding and abetting America’s obesity rates.

So perhaps Oprah has realized what we have found through our ongoing research into the obesity dilemma: that diets simply do not work as permanent weight-loss solutions. And while individuals may encounter some short-term benefits by adhering to restrictive eating plans, these strategies fail in the long-term because they are incompatible with culturally centered notions of eating. Our findings on individual practice and sentiment tell us the ideal solutions to obesity in America have everything to do with the larger cultural framework within which we live our lives. Specifically, we believe significant shifts in important dimensions of our eating culture—increased snacking frequency, the tendency towards eating alone, and an overall decline in commensality — have contributed to much of the current obesity problem.

And herein lies the most significant and important challenge of all, namely, how to change not individual behavior but the parameters within which such behavior resides — how to change the culture.

Recommendations

Marketers interested in connecting their products, services or brands with weight management strategies would be advised to align their messages/products as closely as possible to notions of food as crucial elements of meals consumed at tables, rather than individual food items consumed in isolation.

Whether at the grocery shelf, the fast food restaurant or the fast casual restaurant, companies will benefit from providing healthy choices. Focus on having and communicating quality items on shelves as consumers increasingly equate quality with health. In many cases, consumers are unlikely to choose the healthy choices, but they see those companies that provide them as trustworthy.

Whether or not increases in snacking have played a major role in the rise of the overweight and obese, snacking behavior is largely “invisible” to consumers. For this reason, it will be difficult to appeal to consumers concerned about weight by marketing snacks that rely solely or primarily on low-fat or low-calorie attributes.

Our most recent research reveals marked changes in the way consumers perceive and act upon the notion of balance. Balance is being redefined as enjoyment and sophistication rather than asceticism and hedonistic indulgence. Consumers are transitioning away from low-calorie, low-fat foods and moving in the direction of fresh, less-processed foods with an emphasis on flavor. Understanding that many consumers are incorporating this notion of balance as part of their lifestyle is key to appropriately positioning products as items consumers can use over the long term.

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COM•MEN•SAL•I•TY

[kom-en-sal-i-tee]

— noun

1. The act of eating together at the same table.

Why does eating together matter?

Reinforces social bonds, values and norms (i.e. what is edible vs. inedible)

Lends stimulus to regular, routine gathering of the group

Provides reliable time for communication within the group

Importance of ritual disbursal of shared food (as opposed to a self-service model)

Natural method of portion control

Compulsive eating is impossible due to audience

Individual is accountable to the group for what is eaten

Ideally, eating reinforces the social structure of the group through the division of labor involved in cooking and serving food.